Month: October 2007

In 1832, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and his sons introduced the phenakistoscope (“spindle viewer”). It was also invented independently in the same year by Simon von Stampfer of Vienna, Austria, who called his invention a stroboscope. Plateau’s inspiration had come primarily from the work of Michael Faraday and Peter Mark Roget (the compiler of Roget’s Thesaurus). Faraday had invented a device he called “Michael Faraday’s Wheel,” that consisted of two discs that spun in opposite directions from each other. From this, Plateau took another step, adapting Faraday’s wheel into a toy he later named the phenakistoscope.

I see this and remember that as well as compiling his Thesaurus, Roget was interested in natural phenomena, such as persistence of vision.

More circles and cycles to play with!

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I made, cut and pasted navigation icons into every Entry.

People had commented that it was difficult to get around the site.

[these were since replaced by making the Title a link to Last Entry, which displays Archives and Categories.]